Failure
by Vashtijoy
Summary: Mikami's mother tries to deal with her son. Oneshot.


Haruko doesn't know what to do with Teru.

He used to be a perfect child. Everything she'd dreamed of, when he was a baby, and an infant, and she'd tucked him into bed beside her, and held him to her breast. As he'd grown up, he'd become neat and conscientious. He was a hard worker. He adored her, and respected - well, not just his elders, but as far as she could make out, everyone. Except that he was _too_ responsible, in a lot of ways: rigid, as if he'd cheerily chosen to wear the whole world on his shoulders. He had that childish sense of justice, of right and wrong. Of a world where there were good people, and bad: where there were only two sides that never met. It worried Haruko, but then weren't all children that way? He'd grow out of it. After all, as time passed, it had seemed as if he couldn't ask for more.

Then he'd graduated to middle school, and he'd changed. He'd started to get into fights - worse than the scuffles he'd got into a couple of years before, far worse. There had been days he'd come home late, with his face bruised and his glasses smashed - and they'd been so expensive to replace, so hard to find the money over and over. She'd written to the school, but it had made no difference. There were days when he'd come home and tuck himself away in the apartment's single bedroom without a word.

And then, last night, he hadn't come home at all.

Haruko won't ever forget it. As soon as she'd realised he was late, she'd looked out of the window: twitching the curtain aside over and over, even as she told herself she was overreacting. The fear had tightened around her neck, hour by hour - _Teru has been late home before, there's no need to worry, but he's not safe, he's not _- and how, as the clock ticked over to 22, she'd given in to all her worst imaginings: she'd called the police. They'd taken a description, sent someone to collect a photograph of him: her beautiful son, her pride and joy, who meant more to her than her own life. One of the officers had asked if there was anything wrong at home? At school?

—and Haruko had realised she didn't know at all. Why didn't she know? Why was she hoping it would fix itself? Why hadn't she simply _asked him?_

Which is why, now, she's sitting at the old table that had been her mother's, the one where she taught him to use chopsticks and cutlery, where he'd sat with crayons and paints and coloured huge landscapes where the sky was always blue and the sun shone, and groups of smiling children laughed and played, hand in hand. And one of them always in the background, with long hair, and glasses perched upon his nose. Not taking part in the games, but watching the others. Or watching over them.

She hadn't slept at all that night, hadn't even made the effort. Every minute had stretched out like an hour, as she prepared herself for the worst: _dead, dead, Teru's dead, or someone's hurting him._ And when he stumbled through the door that Saturday morning, quivering as if he might snap, there'd been no question of yelling at him: she'd leapt up and held him, her precious only child, the one thing she could never imagine being without. And she'd sat him at the table, and finally asked, "Teru, what's wrong? I don't want to pry, but I know something's been happening. Let me help."

And he'd told her all about it.

The nightmare of his days at school: the unending parade of bullies seeking out the weak. How someone had to do something about it: how _he_ had to fix it, because nobody else would. How the others wouldn't help him. How he'd tried so hard to do what was right, to make his classroom a good place where everyone could be happy. How they'd turned on him and beaten him for it. And finally, head tucked into his lap for shame, he'd told her about the day before: how they'd torn his clothes from him, and left him there naked on the cold tiles, while the crowd spat laughter. The tears don't spill over until he describes how the boy he'd tried to save had joined with the rest, out of what Teru describes as cowardice and fear.

Seeing that - or rather, trying not to notice it, for his sake - tears spring to Haruko's own eyes. It isn't just her pride in her son, at the way he's always been prepared to step up and defend others. It's the knowledge that he shouldn't _have_ to be the one doing this. Where are the teachers while all this is going on? What is the world, to allow all of this? To let a thirteen-year-old boy think he's the only one?

She wants to protect him, to save him. To make him realise he can't change the world alone. And gently, carefully, she tries to find the words to explain it to him, to make him see the importance of harmony, of fitting in. "You can't expect everything in this world to follow your rules. There's no point in getting yourself hurt like this, so just stop."

Teru may have painted the same thing over and over, but he isn't painting now. Each word is a slap. Shaking with disbelief, he stares at her, as if she's torn off her friendly face, loving face, mother's face, and revealed a demon. As if she's reached across the table to top him and tail him and gut him like a squid.

And it's at that moment that something in his eyes changes, and his tears turns to ice. He doesn't speak another word. If he'd rage at her, accuse and shout and hiss that she'd betrayed him, she knows it would hurt - teeth like diamond needles in her heart, in her breasts where she fed him. But she'd understand it - isn't it normal for children to rebel against their mothers? To resent them? But Teru would never do that. No, he's all remote, forced politeness, and merciless, cold eyes watching from behind glass. As if she's worse than the bullies he told her about. As if he expected more from her, much more, and she's failed him.

As if she doesn't deserve to be his mother any longer.

More than anything, just now, she needs fresh air. She can't stay in the apartment with Teru, not with him staring at her like that. No, she needs to be somewhere else, somewhere she can stop being a mother for ten minutes and simply be a woman, who's losing the thing that matters most to her in all the world, and can't find the key she knows she has - the one that will unlock her little boy, and give him back to her. Her eyes mist over, stinging, but it's nothing she can't blink away until she's out of sight of her home.

The apartment door closes behind her, and she walks, and she walks - across streets and bridges, into the centre of Kyoto, and back out again. The tears are flowing, by this time, over her cheeks and down into her collar. How could she not have realised what he needed? How invalidating must it have been, to hear something like that? How could she have let him think she didn't understand what he wanted?

She knows she can make it right. Turning around, she heads back to find Teru, to talk to him again. To find the right words, this time—

Weeping in the street, she never sees the car that mows her down.


End file.
